The present invention relates generally to the field of silicides for nanometer scale structures such as nanowires, and also to nanowires used in nanobridges.
A silicide is a metal-silicon alloy, where the metal may be any metal capable of forming such as alloy, including cobalt, nickel, niobium, palladium, platinum, tungsten, and others in various combinations with silicon as known to those of ordinary skill in the art.
A nanowire, as the name implies, is an elongated nanoscale structure having a transverse cross-sectional diameter on the order of several nanometers (1 nm=10−9 meters) or thereabouts (for example, from about 3 nm to 100 nm). At these scales, quantum mechanical effects are important enough that the properties of nanowires may vary significantly from those of larger elongated physical structures. Currently, nanowires are used in nanoelectronic devices and nanophotonic devices.
Quantum computing is a known paradigm for computing which is based on a fundamentally different style of computation than the classical digital computing model. While the smallest piece of information in a classical digital computer, a bit, can be in only one of two states at any given time (either ‘0’ or ‘1’), the smallest piece of information in a quantum computer, a quantum bit, or qubit, can be in both states simultaneously. This property of qubits is expected to permit a quantum computer to more efficiently solve computational problems that are hard to address with a classical computer.
One known proposal for making a practical computing device using qubits (specifically qubits capable of maintaining quantum coherence) and other quantum circuit devices involves components that include one or more Josephson junctions. A typical Josephson junction includes two superconductors coupled together by a weak-link bridge, such as an insulator or a thin superconducting wire (Dayem bridge). One known type of weak-link bridge, called a “nanobridge,” is formed by one or more metallic nanowires.